


come on mess me up

by artemidos



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M, i might do a second chapter for smut if i ever get brave enough, mexican honeymoon, will i ever write anything else? idk its 3 am i'm sorry ya'll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 04:38:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7876795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemidos/pseuds/artemidos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“When was your rebellious phase, exactly?”</p><p>“You could say it was already in full swing when I met you.” And then she laughed and all that Seth could do was look at her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	come on mess me up

Sometimes it was just the easiest narrative to sell.

Obviously, there had been issues the first time, like the lack of wedding rings, but Kate had remedied that.

(“Just in case.” She’d said, dropping the fake gold band onto the table, and Seth had given her a look before slipping it into his pocket, nodding.)

It was just what they did sometimes; when they scoped a place out, when they wanted free shit with a nicer hotel room, when they were bored. It was easy to sell that. Mexican honeymoon, runaway bride, too young to be marrying someone – too young to be marrying a guy _his_ age, people had already seen it all. Of course it drew attention, but the two of them would probably draw attention regardless.

They didn’t too often spend nights together, but he’d promised her a drink if she managed to help with casing the latest establishment about to receive the Seth Gecko treatment… Not that it seemed all that menacing anymore. His track record wasn’t the same without his brother. There was a reason they were a two man team, he didn’t have Richie’s brain, and it was hard to be intimidating when you were tired and fucked up beyond belief.

He didn’t want to have to use Kate, and he avoided it as much as he could, but sometimes the circumstances gave him no other choice. It didn’t help that she had some sort of uncanny ability to pick things up relatively fast. He wasn’t sure how he would have stuck with her so long if she didn’t.

(Or maybe he did know. There were more reasons keeping them there. The threat of being completely alone, for one. They both lost everything. The least he could do would be to try and get her back home.)

The one drink as promised wasn’t strong, but she’d only expressed distaste for a moment and downed the thing over the space of the evening while he bet on a pool game he didn’t expect to win. He’d told her to get another if she wanted, and he expected that she would, only because he knew full well how much it helped to escape via substances that weren’t exactly smiled upon. He didn’t look her way often, and if he did, it was out of the corner of his eye, just checking up on her. Although, he knew how much she liked to tell him she could take care of herself. By the time he was ready to go, he was expecting to have to carry her lightweight ass home. As he approached, he realised that he wasn’t sure she’d had more than the one drink, plus there had been food that she must have ordered herself.

“You ready to go, princess?” He asked, leaning against the wall as he looked down at her.

She looked up at him with narrowed eyes and responded by standing up, grabbing her purse and leading the way. At some point exiting the crowded bar, she’d taken his hand, and it had just seemed to make sense. Casual affection wasn’t exactly normalised between them, but Seth would force himself not to make a big deal out of it. Most pretend married couples at least held hands, right? And at the very fucking least it stopped some men from wolf whistling the pretty, innocent girl.

A couple of steps ahead of him, she seemed to have a bit of a skip in her step, and he watched her with thinly veiled amusement. He tried to supress his smile underneath the knowledge that she was probably a little tipsy, it didn’t work.

“I’m not drunk, you know.” She pointed out, after having looked back at him twice and caught the look on his face.

He was perfectly content to be staring at the back of her head like an idiot. Her face was something else. Kate had always thrown him off. She seemed so… Good. Pure. Whatever. It really fucked him up when he looked at her and just wanted to know if she could keep that carefree smile when he wasn’t just holding her hand. He tried not to give her lips too much attention, but failed miserably. He shouldn’t be staring at all, but she had a face you wanted to stare at. How that pretty face had matured since the first time he saw it wasn’t lost on him.

“Did I say you were?” He returned, snapping out of his stare. _Should he drop her hand?_

“I only had one drink, and it was weak as shit. It’s not like I’d never had alcohol before.”

She dropped back a little, bumping into his side and then staying there pressed to him. Tilting her chin up, she looked at him for a moment before taking her bottom lip between her teeth.

“Yeah? You did more in the back of that church than making out with teenage boys?” He questioned idly.

( _Don’t mention resenting those boys. Don’t make a joke about being a man in comparison.)_

“I didn’t _drink_ in church.”

“Alright.” He chuckled under his breath. This time he wasn’t even trying to hide the amusement, and she seemed to notice because she nudged him a little, clearly not impressed with his reaction.

“At parties… Okay, at one party.” She explained, furrowing her eyebrows. “My rebellious phase was more concerned with the whole boy thing.”

“When was your rebellious phase, exactly?”

“You could say it was already in full swing when I met you.” And then she laughed and all that Seth could do was look at her.

He was so fucked.

The laughter, which he eventually joined in on, faded away and was replaced with melancholy, remembering where they were and who they were now. To add to that, Kate was remembering the reason she even had the whole rebellious phase in the first place. She wished it was the same narrative that everyone else got, bored teenage girl tried to live a little before she got married and had a picket fence and a book club. Kate wasn’t that lucky. She could pray and pray for normalcy, but that would never bring it to her. The best she could do was keep herself alive and enjoy what little good she did have in her life.  

This was enjoying the good. Holding the hand of the one living person who stuck by her side, even if it was just for now.

“You’re a good kid, Kate.” Seth said, out of the blue.

The way he looked at her, as he finished speaking and she looked up at him curiously, it spoke volumes more than his words. Maybe he was the one who was tipsy, staring down at her like she was the sun. You didn’t look at people you didn’t care about that way, and that’s what Kate had been holding on to.

“Don’t do that.” She told him, looking serious.

(Where were they walking again? They’d turned a corner and the street was too empty. He couldn’t remember which direction the motel was in.)

“Do what, compliment you?” He wouldn’t stop looking at her now, so she continued to lead them through the mostly empty street.

“Call me a kid.” She replied. “I hate it when you call me that. I’m not a kid.”

“Whatever you say.” He tried to brush it off, finally averting his gaze because he knew there was something underneath the conversation. “To me, you’re a kid.”

“I’m old enough to pretend to be your wife.” She pointed out.

He considered that, and then responded. “Yeah, but everyone else is still looking at you, and thinking damn, what is that kid doing?”

“Seth, I’m not.”

She had stopped walking, and tugged on his hand to pull him and stop him with her. He would have kept walking without her, but again, he didn’t know where he was going yet, which was bullshit because he hadn’t had anything to drink that night. Of course all it took was holding her hand, some conversation and the crippling reminder that his life had gone up in flames to fuck with his memory. He stopped walking and in turning back their hands dropped again together between them. It took a moment for him to look at her, but she prompted it by reaching with her free hand for his suit jacket, pulling him towards her.

“What?” His voice was low, because god, she was far too fucking close. Looking up at him with those big green eyes ready to fuck up his entire life like it already hadn’t crashed and burned over and over.

“You don’t think of me as a kid.” Kate phrased it was if she was telling him a fact. “I _know_ you don’t.”  

“Right. And how do you know that?” His voice had gained some volume now, as he shook his head, looking away.

He shouldn’t have pushed it, because there she was, leaning up on her toes and reaching for his cheek, gentle and firm. Rushed and slow. It was a blur, Seth didn’t move for a moment but at the last minute, before their lips touched, he moved back, although not far enough to remove her hand from his cheek. It was too warm, too comfortable. He was too ready to give in.

“Kate.” He said her name but he didn’t open his eyes, he didn’t even know when he’d closed them.

And all she said was please. Her voice low, breaking a little, pleading with him.

“I can’t.” He shook his head, taking in half a breath. His eyes stayed closed. “I can’t do this. Not here, with you.”

Seth wasn’t foolish enough to think he could make up for his past, and to be honest, he didn’t want to. There was no heaven waiting for him, and no amount of good deeds could change what was innate in him. For her, he’d been trying, making attempts at being good. The whole reason he hadn’t abandoned her at a bus stop was supposed to be because he was trying. It wasn’t _this_. It couldn’t be because of _this_.

“Please.” She repeated it again, like a mantra, it broke his resolve far too quickly.

(Kissing Kate Fuller was better than any promise of El Rey. Kissing Kate Fuller was not something Seth Gecko deserved to be doing.)

How could this be a bad deed?

She’d let go of his hand, and brought it up to his neck. His hand moved to her side and he pushed her forward. Her back hit a wall and he stopped abruptly, his eyes opening wide as he continued to hold her there. Kate let out a heavy breath, and he marvelled the flushed skin of her cheeks while also knowing that he shouldn’t be doing what he was doing. If he was good, he would stop there, call it a momentary lapse in judgement and maybe buy her a separate hotel room. He’d punish himself to no close proximity.

And yet he knew he wasn’t going to do that when she was looking at him like she needed him. The desperation was more than evident, and she held on to him for dear life.

Neither of them could think of a thing to say that wasn’t clouded by their awe and confusion. Now that this had happened, he wasn’t sure if he could stop. She didn’t seem quite so sure either, her eyes already darting back to his lips. The taste of her mouth was intoxicating, far more than anything they had in the bar.

He still knew he shouldn’t be doing it when he kissed her again, instinctively pulling her up to wrap her legs around his waist as he pressed her into the brick wall. He kissed her for every time he wanted to but didn’t. She kissed him for every impure thought that had her praying for forgiveness. His hands tangled into the hem of the dress she wore and she was dangerously close to ripping his jacket. It was rough and gentle and everything in between.

The second time he pulled away, he moved his face to her neck, breathing heavily. She felt like she was on fire.

Kate was the first to say something.

“We should go back to the motel.”

(He remembered where it was now.)


End file.
